Virtual Advertising

Well, product placement has been around for a long time—original television shows were fully sponsored by certain products before commercials (as we kno(e)w them) existed. As you may be aware, however, is the phenomenon called Google Maps. Not only were you able to interact with maps, but you are able to plan trips, monitor traffic, and now you can even see 2D views of the city…. As if you are walking through town.

Once hardware technology is able to catch up, mainly PDAs, etc, we will be able to use Google Maps’ Street View feature to see exactly where we are by comparing images of buildings to our surroundings, rather than looking for a street sign and comparing it to a zoomed-out print out of a map.

What does this mean for advertisers? Instead of just putting up a billboard in, say Times Square, you will be able to pay Google to put up a virtual billboard on Google Maps. What does this mean for companies that own the physical real estate of the billboards?